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For PleasureA history of the vibrator.

By Teresa RiordanPosted Tuesday, July 5, 2005, at 7:35 AM ET

Click here to see a slide show.

Two weeks ago, postal workers in Bluffton, S.C., heard a strange buzzing sound after tossing a package into a sorting bin. The building was evacuated, the block cordoned off. Within minutes, a state bomb squad helicoptered in from the state capital. The crack team secreted off the suspicious package and gingerly dismantled ... a vibrator.

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In homage to the alert South Carolinian law-enforcement agents who reacted so swiftly to this potential breach of national security (by contrast, think of the Connecticut airport authorities who last week let a drunk man steal a small plane), Slate offers a tour of the vibrator's evolution. Since its introduction in the 1880s, the device has, by the most conservative estimates, mechanically induced billions of orgasms. Yet it springs from surprisingly chaste and medical beginnings. Click here for a slide show about the history of artificial stimulation for women.

Related in Slate

In 2004, Dahlia Lithwick discussed Alabama's ban on the sale of sex toys, including vibrators. Steve Lichtman profiled Sue Johanson, Canada's favorite senior citizen and vibrator expert. Christopher Caldwell and Jodi Kantor assessed The Vagina Monologues in 2001, which Kantor called "less a play than a pep rally." Scott Shuger tried out sex toys, videotapes, and Viagra; Laura Kipnis reflected on the wishful anatomies of Deep Throat.

Medical Examiner thanks Carol Queen, curator of the antique vibrator museum at Good Vibrations in San Francisco.